Systems in Colorado designed to maintain the integrity of standardized academic tests don’t use as many checks for cheating as some in other states.

But in light of cheating scandals across the country — and higher stakes associated with the implementation of Senate Bill 191, which ties teacher evaluations to student test performance — Colorado is considering changes.

“Right now, we don’t have a lot of security issues,” said Jo O’Brien, associate commissioner at the Colorado Department of Education. “Yet our concern is as teacher consequences are tied to test scores, those stakes will be higher, and we will want to make sure more security is in place.”

Talks of the changes have been going on for months as the state education department looks for funding. In two years, standardized tests will begin transitioning to computer administration to reduce the possibility of cheating.

Cheating-detection software is available for the Colorado Student Assessment Program tests, but the state doesn’t use it. The state is under contract with the testing company, CTB/McGraw-Hill, but use of the software, which analyzes scores as they are calculated, would cost extra.

Twenty other states, including Florida and Mississippi, use the software, which was developed by Caveon, a cheating, auditing and security company.

“Where we’re . . . headed”

Experts say having those checks in place at the time of testing and score calculation — instead of waiting for someone to raise a suspicion — will soon be the norm.

“It’s where we’re all headed,” said Caveon president John Fremer. “We’re getting better as a professional testing community.”

The state education department uses about five methods to statistically analyze test scores before they are released to school districts, but officials say they’ve never found anomalies that can’t be explained.

The education department “is responsible for looking over data for making sure there are no irregularities,” O’Brien said. “But it’s very good responsibility on the school district’s part when they are able to do some analysis, too, because they are the front lines.”

Not all districts analyze their own data, and the ones that do have varying processes.

Adams 12 Five Star Schools flags any gains of 20 percent or more for further investigation, which can require going to the state.

“Sometimes all we can say is it seems unusual, and we can do some digging, but in terms of looking at erasures or the tests themselves, we’re not in a position to be able to do that,” Superintendent Chris Gdow ski said.

In Weld County School District 6, officials investigate all score increases and decreases of as little as 1 percentage point. Schools are instructed to do their own analysis as well, including for individual student changes.

Misadministrations

Denver Public Schools breaks apart data but does not look for anomalies.

If someone raises a suspicion based on a drastic score change or if actual scores don’t line up with scores projected from interim tests, DPS may investigate.

“It’s harder for us to know when something would look wrong,” said chief academic officer Susana Cordova. “A bigger concern for us is around misadministration, rather than around malicious intentional cheating.”

Misadministrations that could lead to cheating or false results must be monitored by districts and reported to the state. They range from teachers who overclarify a question for students during the test or scheduling problems that disrupt the required sequence of test subjects.

This year, the state education department had 51 misadministration reports, 30 of which resulted in test score invalidations.

In 2010, 31 of 50 misadministrations resulted in invalidations, including a case in Adams 12, where nearly 6,000 test scores were tossed after district monitors discovered that Colorado Virtual Academy allowed students of different grades to take their tests in the same room.

The district reported the violation to the state. The education department gave instructions on how to salvage some tests that had not yet been taken, and it ordered the rest invalidated.

At one school in Greeley this year, 63 tests were invalidated after a teacher presented test content to her class just before the exam. Students reported the violation.

School officials said they often depend on students and teachers to report their colleagues when something is wrong.

Caveon’s Fremer, whose company does test auditing for various industries, said educators in schools that have a culture of trust tend to be more honest than other industry professionals.

“Overall, people are less honest. It’s a shame, but it’s true,” Fremer said. “But educators are a good group. The overwhelming majority want to help their kids.”

Yesenia Robles is currently a breaking news reporter for The Denver Post. She has covered education, crime and courts, and the northern suburbs. Yesenia was raised in Denver, graduated from CU Boulder, and speaks Spanish. Call her with your story ideas at 303-954-1372.

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